Red Rubber Ball
by Artemis Soteira
Summary: A moment in time, it meant nothing to anyone else save as a distraction. For one of them, it brought memories of a bitter past. But for the other, it would grant entrance to a future that had never existed and bring hope to the place where all else dies.


**A/N: Annabeth finds herself reliving memories she had forgotten about long ago. Set at an indeterminate point in the future, memories from The Lightning Thief. **

**I love all your thoughts, whether they wander or not. If they wander into the reviews, even better. ;)  
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**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & the Olympians. Nor do I own a wonderful, immortal, three-headed puppy. I would need a bigger house.**

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I step off of the boat, my mind floating in a billion directions as I follow the crowd.

_Thank goodness that boat ride's over._

_I wish it weren't so dark._

_It seems awful warm for January._

_There are quite a lot of people here._

_Those are nice poplars._

I growl at myself. _I am a daughter of Athena,_I thought firmly._ I am in control of my own mind. I am not a child, that my thoughts may wander so...so...stupidly! I'm acting like my brain is full of...seaweed!_

My anger disappears immediately at that thought. I growl again, this time in frustration and sadness, and approach the three-pronged crossroads.

A querulous growl answers me, and I stop in my tracks, eyes opening wide as other figures pass around me, oblivious to the growl. They continue forward, faces downward, heedless of their surroundings as they walk beneath an archway. An archway that has feet. Four feet, to be precise. A four-footed archway that is now whimpering pitifully.

I blink as Cerberus, the three-headed terror of the Underworld and Hades' most terrifying monster, wags his tail and positively _yips _at me, panting in joy.

_What in Hades..._ A nagging memory tickles at my mind. I blink again, frowning, trying to focus, but the green mist around me shimmers in an irregular rhythm, as though time itself is simply moving around it. It shapes itself into recognizable forms, the three-headed dog's gleeful slobbering a backdrop to the figures. A teenaged boy stands in front of me, staring nervously at a green-misted Cerberus as the shadowy ranks of spirits continue to shuffle forward around me.

"_Five seconds,"_ a satyr's familiar voice is saying. _"Do we run now?"_

I now have the oddest feeling of weightlessness as a determined, proud, and terrified looking twelve-year-old mist-girl marches directly through me and up to the snarling monster ahead.

"_See the ball? You want the ball, Cerberus? Sit!"_ I gasp as the girl holds a rubber ball above her head, recognizing the high-pitched command as a memory from long ago finally floods back to me. My mind reaches back eighty years and continues to watch as the girl throws the ball to the stunned dog. She speaks more words, and the green boy and satyr walk under the transfixed guard of the Underworld. The ball is thrown again, but I ignore it and turn my eyes inward, getting caught up in my own memory of the time.

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"_Five seconds," Grover said. "Do we run now?"_

_I grinned triumphantly and pulled a grapefruit-sized ball out of my bag. Refusing to think about what I was doing, I strode forward, ignoring a sudden chill as I approached the three-headed menace._

"_See the ball?" I shouted. "You want the ball, Cerberus? Sit!"_

_The dog did not move. My heart stopped in panic, realizing suddenly that this was no Doberman in an obedience class. This was Cerberus, the three-headed terror of the Underworld and Hades' most terrifying monster. And I was a twelve-year-old girl._

_Six eyes blinked at me as the three heads turned slightly, ears perking up. I swallowed. It wasn't sitting, but it also wasn't messily devouring me. Yet._

"_Sit!" I commanded firmly, heart pounding. The towering beast hesitated, eyeing me uncertainly - then sat. At my command. Obeying my command._

"_Good boy," I breathed, throwing the ball. His powerful jaws clamped down on the fragile rubber, tearing huge holes in it as his heads fought over their prize. _

"_Drop it!" With a whimper this time, Cerberus again obeyed my command. A feeling of power coursed through my veins, along with a feeling of disgust as I picked up the piece of slobber fallen at my feet, and a peculiarly happy feeling as I watched the dog's fawning expression, all three heads watching me with devotion and something I might have called gratitude in a human. I ordered my companions to go, feeling odd._

_That infuriating boy frowned at me. "But-" he started to argue._

"_Now!" I commanded. He blinked and turned, sidling forward nervously with Grover at his heels as the monster growled again. I called to Cerberus, waving the ball until his eyes returned to me._

"_What about you?" the boy called to me, a worried frown knitting his brow. He was sweet, in an aggravating sort of way._

"_I know what I'm doing, Percy," I snapped, although I had no clue how much longer the dog would obey me._

_Apparently, long enough. Grover and the demigod now stood on the other side of the giant hound, which was looking at me with wide, eager eyes._

"_Good dog," I murmured. I threw the red rubber blob that used to be a ball again, certain that it would not survive another round with the excited dog. Walking swiftly under the three fighting heads, I rejoined the bleating goat-man and the wide-eyed son of Poseidon I called my friends._

"_How did you do that?" asked the aforementioned wide-eyed imbecile._

"_Obedience school," I replied briskly, feeling unexpected tears forming behind my eyes. I blinked. "When I was little..." A memory overcame me, though I was dimly aware that I was still talking to the demigod, and I saw myself in a deeply buried past I had tried my hardest to forget._

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_**I stood, all of three feet tall, with my hands on my hips, staring at the four-legged person in front of me.**_

"_**Sit?" I asked, like my father had told me. The person with the slobbery tongue just stared at me, grinning.**_

_**I frowned at the furry face. "Sit." Still no response from the person. I decided I didn't really like this person, whom my father had called 'Dog.'**_

"_**Sit!" I said forcefully, glaring at the standing Dog. The person blinked, pointy ears pointing upwards, considering me. It didn't really look like a person after all. The Dog finally lowered itself onto its back legs, and I realized with a beaming grin that it was sitting!**_

_**My father grinned slightly at my extremely pleased expression, and I turned to him happily, though his eyes were reserved as always. I saw the woman he called my 'stepmother' frown behind him, but I ignored her. I didn't like her at all, so I turned my eyes back to my father.**_

"_**Sit!" I told him, and he laughed aloud, startled.**_

"_**Not so fast, little goddess," he said, the strange name making the woman behind him jump. He, too, seemed surprised he had said it, but he continued. "I'm a person, not a dog. We don't work the same way..."**_

_**.  
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"_Never mind that," an urgent voice dragged me back to the present. "Come on!" Grover tugged Percy forwards, but I turned back to Cerberus, who was moaning mournfully. The little red ball, torn to shreds, lay at his feet as he eyed me hopefully, his eyes echoing ancient loneliness._

"_Good boy," I said shakily, but I looked into his worried eyes, unable to ignore the loneliness in his black eyes. I blinked uncertainly._

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_**Lonely gray eyes confronted me as I stared into the mirror.**_

"_**Annabeth Chase," I whispered to the shiny glass, "you are not happy." The gray eyes closed as I forced myself to acknowledge that statement. After trying again, for three months, I had to acknowledge that this vast, elegant house was not my home. And I was unhappy.**_

"_**Then leave," a harsh voice intruded. I spun to find my stepmother sneering unpleasantly in the door of the bathroom. "Why stay when you are obviously unwelcome? You're only bringing us trouble."**_

_**My head snapped up proudly. **_**Why stay, indeed? **_**I wondered as I walked coldly past the spiteful hag in the doorway. **_**Why stay, when I am obviously not welcome? My own father doesn't even have the time to say hello to me. Why am I torturing myself?**

_**I knew the answer, of course. Hope. That gods-curst little spirit. I supposed Pandora just **_**had**_** to let it out of that accursed box. It flowered painfully in my chest as my mind insisted that my father loved me, insisted that he would have time for me soon, insisted that I only had to hold on a little longer. But I was done holding on to false hope. I let go of it, of him, and returned to the home I didn't need to hope for. Camp Half-Blood was there.**_

_**But deep in my heart, I couldn't give up the hope that someday, he would be willing to make time for his daughter.**_

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_I blinked again and found myself crouched behind a rotten black stump, Cerberus' whining still audible behind me. My friends bickered about the drawbacks of plans made by imbeciles, but I closed my eyes and listened to the dog's sad, questing howls as he called for his new friend._

_I couldn't help hearing the hope in the monster's whines, the hope that maybe his friend would return._

_It was crazy, to be sure, but I couldn't help wondering if the terrible guard of the Underworld wasn't really just a four-legged person crushed by the burden of unfulfilled hope._

_His mournful howls followed me as I continued deeper into the Underworld, farther away from him._

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I open my eyes to see the dog staring at me, yipping uncontrollably in excitement. All three heads lower themselves in front of me, competing for my attention, six eyes filled with glee. I laugh breathlessly as one threatens to knock me head over heels, a light glow gracing my pale cheeks.

At the sound of my laughter, the unmoving, frozen scenery around me falls even more silent. A dark robed figure steps out of the security gate marked "ATTENDANT ON DUTY" and casts about for the source of the noise, pale face scrunched in annoyance.

"Who dares to laugh at the gates of Death?" it mutters to itself, but stops when its cold, black eyes met mine. "Ah. Annabeth Chase. Of course she does."

I merely return the figure's stare. "And why should I not?" I challenge, my voice cool and steely as I rest a hand upon Cerberus' middle head. "What are you going to do, kill me?"

The ghostly figure's paper face whispers into a semblance of a smile. "I suppose not." Its dark eyes light on the puppyish glee in the ancient, immortal dog's face, and the hard black orbs soften. "I suppose we all get lonely," the dark man muses. "I suppose we all hope for something." His smile slowly gains substance in the shadowy realms of nothingness, and his eyes pierce my own.

"I suppose we do," I manage to whisper, transfixed by the sudden intensity of his stare.

And suddenly, his focus lessens, and he smiles. "You might visit the old dog, once in a while."

Then the judge of souls points me up the hill, to Elysium.


End file.
